Venezuela: Maduro vs Lechuga

Fausta's Blog

If you disseminate currency exchange information on the internet, Maduro will have you jailed and indicted:
Venezuela interim president Maduro takes on currency exchange website

Video in Spanish,

Venezuela’s interim president, Nicolás Maduro, came out Tuesday fighting the acute depreciation of the bolivar against the U.S. dollar by ordering the indictment and jailing of the creators of lechuga.com, a popular website that thousands of Venezuelans consult everyday to check currency exchange quotes in the parallel market.
Maduro issued the order as part of his government’s effort to contain the impact on the economy of the two back-to-back devaluations of the Venezuelan currency. The first one — of 32 percent — was announced on Feb. 7, when the exchange for special sectors went from 4.30 bolivars per dollar to 6.30 bolivars. The second one took place five weeks later, with the decision of auctioning foreign currency for another group of sectors.

Of course, Maduro blames the “capitalist oligarchy” for the state of the economy, rather than the disastrous Chavista mismanagement. Last month the annual inflation rate rose to 22.8%, the highest in our hemisphere.

Lechuga.com is gone, along with its Twitter and Facebook accounts. As of the writing of this post, no one had been arrested.

DollarToday, however, is still up.